Weirdo
by kusegoto
Summary: (Мор. Утопия / Pathologic) They're visiting a different village that she's never been to and she doesn't like it. It feels bad in her hair and her nose and all over her brain. Mishka (Murky)/Taya baby femslash, entirely SFW.


She sits on top of his shoulders for most of the walk, until she can see the patted down soil beneath the grass, even from up here. It looks like a road that has been travelled too often, by both humans and animals. Then, he suddenly puts her on the ground and takes her by the hand. His hands are sweaty and too big.

"I don't want to walk," she says.

"We're almost there," he says. "You can sit down once we arrive, okay?"

She makes a face as he rustles her hair. He doesn't get it that she doesn't like it when he rustles her hair even though she makes a face and covers her head afterwards. She doesn't know what the word "tolerate" really means, but she "tolerates" it, because she knows that he's kind of dumb and doesn't know what the right stuff to do is.

Mishka doesn't like the grass because it tickles her nose, but she's used to it, too, because when she used to play at her train car, it always grew up really really tall and if she sat on the door it would tickle her feet, too. Spishka is pretending to be smart again, because he seems to pick up some brown stuff and hold it up to Artemy.

"Can we bring this in with us?" he asks.

"I'm sure they'll have some in their gardens," Artemy says. "But, sure. You can pretend you brought it with you as a gift."

"I didn't said anything about gifts," Spichka says, but he's smiling. Mishka doesn't really understand what the joke is, or why he likes it when Artemy puts his hand on his head, but she considers it's probably because he's kinda dumb, too. It would seem that Mishka is the only smart one of the three of them, but that's okay. She's used to being the smartest.

The grass is very tall. Artemy bought her some sandals, and she's wearing them now. They look kind of cool, even if she hates wearing them, and how they feel strapping down across her feet. While they walk over the earth, she can feel the rocks and the bits of dirt getting into the open toes, and she grimaces with every step. Spichka keeps picking every dumb piece of grass that looks different and keeps throwing away bits that he decides he doesn't need. Artemy tells him to stop but he doesn't.

Suddenly, there are bulls.

Rocks of bulls, rather. But they appear so suddenly and so large that Mishka can't believe she didn't see them sooner. She lifts her head from the ground and looks at them when they walk underneath, mounds of shapeless rock that become the suggestion of bulls when they enter the village.

When they walk into the village, she realizes it's really hot. It's been hot all day, but for some dumb reason, she can see a fire going in the middle of the yurts and tents. Why is there a fire? She doesn't like that. She looks up at Artemy suspiciously as he walks them through the shapeless bulls. He keeps his head forward, and his expression seems to change to something unfamiliar-but-still: something you'd look at a familiar stranger with.

Mishka looks away when he is approached by an unfamiliar man. This man has short black hair that hangs over his eyebrows. He holds Artemy's hands with his own and bows halfway. He speaks in a language she recognizes but doesn't know, and Artemy replies to him in the same way. The older man laughs and looks at Spichka.

"Are you the son?" He says. Mishak doesn't know what that word means.

"I've been learning from Grandfather and now him," Spichka says. He looks proud of himself. For what? What has he been learning? Different kinds of grass? The older man places his hands on Spichka's shoulders and says a word in that language again. It seems to be a good word because Spichka's dumb smile is as bright as the fire across the field.

The older man turns to Mishka. She turns her whole body away, and she steps behind Artemy's leg. She can hear him speak in that language, and Artemy reaches behind him to bring her back.

"She's... shy," he explains. "Can you say hello? Just a hello."

"Hi."

"Can you tell him your name?"

"Yeah. I can." She looks up at him when all she can hear is the roll of grass. "But I'm not gonna say it. Nuh-uh."

He gives her one of those looks where his brow raises and so does his lips, but it barely looks like a smile. Something more made of disbelief. Mishka lowers her head again and keeps looking the other way. There are women with thin dresses carrying beige sheets to a clothesline held up on wooden poles. Two children watch on their own wooden log before they're called up to help. They look older than her, but not by much. Three men walk past them, discussing something and using their hands to gesture around. Two of them carry twig-like knives on their belts. The air smells like smoke and the flowers she talks to.

Everyone seems to be busy. That means she'll have to do work soon. That's annoying.

Artemy puts his hand on her shoulder to turn her around again, only this time they're walking. She can feel where the sun pushes down on her head, right over the black tufts of hair that she had to brush today. There's a lady that seems to be friends with Artemy, who comes from the northern part of town and brought her new clothes. Her name sounded like gravel. She brushed her hair for their 'big trip' and Mishka made a face. Her clothes fit her shoulders and arms and she guesses it feels better than her old dress.

She is relieved when she realizes Artemy is bringing her to a large yurt. Shade. The sun is so hot on her head. But then she sees how dark it is inside. She's gotten used to the lights inside old grandfather's house that Artemy moved her and Spichka into. She sticks her heels in the ground and Artemy does that annoying thing where he picks her up from under her arms.

"I don't want to go inside," she insists.

"You said you wanted to sit down, didn't you?" he asks, as her legs uselessly kick back on his knees. "There are girls your age inside. You can play with them."

"I don't want to play with anyone."

"I don't think that's true, kiddo."

"It's true! I don't want to play with anyone. Not anyone my age, or any babies, either. I want to sit down and sleep."

Artemy drops her down on a wooden log covered in a hempen blanket. Mishka looks down at where she sits, and then realizes there's another hand next to her. When she lifts her head, she sees a bunch of girls staring at her, and is startled.

"Hello, big brother," one of the girls says. "Is this a little bear?"

"She wants to meet you," he says to the children. Mishka makes a face like she just smelled bull manure. "I wasn't aware you were allowed to move your pillow."

The girl grins and Mishka sees she has a tooth missing right behind where her mouth hides her teeth. She pats on her big red pillow that is stitched with pretty colours. Pretty for a pillow, at least. "It goes everywhere I go! Will you play with us? Do you have to go watch dinner be made?"

"Only for a little while. Perhaps later." Artemy kneels down to meet Mishka, who glares at him. "Don't look at me like that. Taya is very friendly."

"You're not allowed to call her that," one of the girls says from next to the pillow girl. "... Technically."

"I wasn't certain if you all would get jealous if I did," Artemy says, and weirdly, the little girl smirks.

"We'll let you get away with calling her anything but Mother Superior until dinner time. Then, we might tell on you."

"I can handle that."

"Stay, Artyomak!" the pillow girl who is much too young to be anyone's mother pleads, grabbing his sleeve as he stands again. "We're all so bored!"

"Play with Mishka! I'll see to you soon. Her brother is waiting for me." Gently, with those stupidly big hands, he pries her little fingers from his sleeve. She seems to crawl after him, but laughs as he steps farther away from him. He looks towards Mishka, and tries to smile. He smiles like the sun is in his eyes and he can't see anything.

Which is to say, his smile is ugly. Mishka pulls her knees up to her chest as one of the girls sits next to her, on the other side from the pillow mother.

"Where did you get your clothes?" she asks. "They're very blue."

Mishka looks at her white shirt and blue vest. "A lady gave them to me."

"Is she one of the ladies here?"

"No. She's from the town." Even Mishka can notice the girl's face changes into something like a grimace. "She's nice, I guess. Too nosy. Pretends not to want to help but does it anyway."

"How annoying," the girl says. "Ladies from the town are all so annoying."

"You can't call them that!" another girl cries. "They're older than us, so we gotta be nice to them."

"But they don't give us nice clothes like this one does!"

"I didn't ask for the clothes," Mishka insists, "I didn't even want them."

"I want your ribbon," a different girl says. "Can I have it?"

_"Abgai_ will know you took it," the girl who sits next to Mishka retorts. Mishka pulls her shoulders away when the girl reaches out to pluck the white ribbon from her sleeves.

The pillow mother touches the matching ribbon that is on her nearest shoulder. She curls it into her palm. "It's very pretty."

"Stop touching me," Mishka leans away again, and bumps into the girl who won't crawl away. The pillow mother looks down at her feet, which are bound in open-toed sandals.

"You're wearing shoes?" she asks, like she can't believe it. "Why did _bosooly_ bring you in shoes?"

"The lady gave them to me." She folds her arms in her lap. "She said girls shouldn't walk around without shoes."

"That's so dumb," one of the older looking girls says. "Have you never felt the earth?"

"I always do. I like the earth." Mishka starts to take off her sandals, trying to hook one of her toes into the straps. "I usually take off my shoes. He lets me."

"'He'?" Pillow mother asks.

"He. You know... him." Mishka moves her head towards the yurt's open-door flap. In the distance, Artemy stands with a man who looks like he was made from bulls, far away from the fire. Somewhere, Spichka is in the garden. "The... guy."

"Your _abgai?"_

"I guess." She frowns. "What does that mean?"

"It means papa," the pillow mother says. "If he's your dad, then you're his _basaghan_. We're all _basaghe _too."

"How do you say that...?"

_"Basaghan!_ I'll tell you outside. I wanna see you walk on the earth." As if on cue, a girl offers her hand for the pillow mother to take, and she stands up gingerly. "We should all walk on the earth."

"I wanted to sit down," Mishka says. Pillow mother offers her hand.

"We can sit in the grass after! You can see all the flowers with us."

The girls all rise and carry her out as quick as the bulls appeared when they arrived. The sun hits her and she shuts her eyes because it hurts to see. She can feel the heat creep over her whole head again, and her brain feels like twyre and cotton. She steps out of her sandals as they walk across the grass, and Mishka looks back on how they leave them behind. It makes it easier on the sun in her eyes.

She moves her head again, and the pillow mother smiles at her. Taya. She's Taya, right?

Taya smiles at her. She's a lot shorter.

"Taya?" she asks.

"Yes? That is my name." Her smile is very toothy.

"Oh. Uh. Yeah." Mishka looks to the ground. The grass looks different here. "Yeah. I was just getting used to it, yeah."

"What's yours?"

"Mishka."

"Does that mean anything?"

"Little bear." Mishka kicks at a dense patch of grass. It kicks up, and falls on her skirt. "Does Taya mean anything?"

"I don't know. I know it's similar to my dad's name." Taya sways her head back and forth, and holds on to Mishka's hand. It makes her feel like she's guiding Taya somewhere, but Mishka isn't sure if they're meant to go anywhere. "Most people call me their Mother Superior."

"How are you their mother? You're like a little baby."

Taya holds her head up to the sky. "I don't know! I'm important, I think. I think I'm your age. You look my age."

"I can't be a baby," Mishka says, shaking her head. "I'm not lumpy and weird."

"I'm not lumpy and weird, either!"

"But if you're a baby, you're probably a little lumpy."

"I said I'm not a baby! I'm the Mother for a reason." Taya goes to fold her arms, but she pulls Mishka's hand in with her. It seems like she won't let go. "I am responsible for my people. They need guidance, even if they are only one."

"One people?" Mishka keeps her scrunched up face. "How can you be one if you're a bunch of people?"

"We think as one. I don't know how, but we do." Taya stops them in the grass. A bunch of the girls have taken to sitting, or rolling, or running through the tall twyre. Taya picks up a flower that Mishka recognizes but doesn't know the name of. She picks it from its stem and holds it to her. "All of the petals are together, see? You can't take a petal away and keep it a flower. Then it just becomes a petal."

"My brother says that when you pick plants out of the earth they die," Mishka replies. "I think you just killed it."

"We can use it later. Plants are important after they get picked. That's how your _abgai_ made medicine for everyone." She opens Mishka's hand, and puts the flower in there. "Now you're holding on to Us. You're holding on to the Kin."

"Are you all really in this flower?"

"No! It's an example. By holding on and keeping Us close, you can watch how things change."

"I think I'm just holding on to a flower. I won't become a flower by holding it."

"You're weird," Taya says. "Try thinking a little harder."

Mishka sits down. Taya sits with her. The grass comes up to her shoulders and tickles Mishka's chin. "I think my brain doesn't want to work sometimes."

"My tongue doesn't work sometimes, either." Taya sticks it through the hole in her teeth. A small square of fleshy pink pokes through. "It feels like syrup and warm milk when I try to talk. Dad had the same tongue. He used his hands to speak a lot."

"Cool," Mishka finds herself saying. "Where's your dad?"

Taya frowns. "He didn't make it out of the big building. A lot of people were screaming when he didn't wake up. I was only told after your papa stopped everything and the earth changed."

"Oh."

"Is he your dad?"

"I guess." Mishka looks down at the flower as she lays it on her lap. Its petals rustle with the wind, and the tall reeds of grass flutter over them both, like an earthy canopy. "He thinks he is. I kind of like it. He always does a lot of running around and taking care of me and stuff."

"Is the boy your brother?"

"Yeah. He wants to become a... doctor. I think. Whatever your _men-coo_ are."

"He wants to cut bulls!" Taya says, eyes open wide and excited. "Only a few people are allowed to do that! There are _menkhu_ at the fire pit tonight. They're cooking one of the animals from the pasture. They had to take all sorts of things out of the body before we could cook it."

"Is that dinner for us?"

"Yes! We should eat together tonight. We are both small, you can sit on my pillow."

"I don't think I'm gonna be allowed." Mishka puts the flower on Taya's knees, branching the two of them together. "But... sure. Maybe. If I can."

"I'm going to make sure we can!" Taya's smile is wide. It feels nicer to look at than the hard sun and the beige grass and the hot air. She wasn't aware she had a headache until it's gone, and then - everything feels clear.


End file.
